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Archive for the category “The Tidal Wave”

Tidal Wave’s ‘Mango Mango’ once held the record for falling out of the Springbok Top 20 from the highest position as it spent its last week in the chart at number 7. It held that record for over 6 years before Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch’s ‘Superman’ left the chart from number 5. The song was banned by the SABC after having spent 9 weeks in the chart. One can only guess at why it was banned, but it could have been the catchy chart of ‘69 ,69, 69’ which the song starts with where the censors suddenly woke to the fact that this could refer to a sexual position. Although there could be any number of other reasons they thought up.

Copies of the top 20 listing from the SABC archive, actually have ‘Mango Mango’ listed at number 13 the week it left the chart, but this was crossed out and every song moved up 1 position with a new one at number 20.

However, we did have 9 great weeks to enjoy this bouncy number which Mike Pilot and friends brought us. The song stomps along with a prominent drum sound that a piano plinky-plonks next to while a strong vocal pounds out the chanting chorus of ‘Maaango, Maaango’. As the song heads towards its climax the vocals become echoey and some yelps and screams give it a stereotypical jungle like feel.

‘Mango Mango’ would also make the LM Radio charts, enterting them on 17 January 1971 at number 5 (2 places higher than the position it left Springbok charts from). However, it was the 14th song to enter those charts at 5 or higher (counting from 15 March 1970), so that was not unusual. After entering at 5 it dropped to 17 the next week and then spent another week at 17 before leaving the chart, maybe it proved to be too fruity for the LM people as well as the SABC guys.

An astute newspaper writer back in the late 60’s may have been tempted to write the headline ‘Storm causes a Tidal Wave’ which would have been a reference to Terry Dempsey’s newly formed label ‘Storm’ and the first release thereon called ‘Man On A String’ by The Tidal Wave. I don’t know whether that headline was ever written, but it should have been.

Better known for their hits ‘Mango Mango’ and ‘Spider Spider’ (both of which charted on the Springbok Top 20), The Tidal Wave were powered by Mike Pilot who later went on to form Stingray. Ken Haycock, Roy Naturman and Mike Koch were the others in the line up.

‘Man On A String’ features some great harmonies, slightly reminiscent of the Beach Boys, but the music is more akin to the bands of the British Invasion (Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits and the like). It’s bold, brassy and catchy. You will be singing ‘Round and round and upside down, anyway you like,’ for a good while after hearing this and while it may have suffered from not having a title that was made up of a word being repeated, it can still stand proudly next to its more successful brothers.